


so silver, so exact

by malachiical



Category: The Spectacular Spider-Man (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Falling In Love, Genderswap, Genderswap one or multiple characters to make a ship into femslash, Gruff Cranky and Worldweary Character Feels Soft for the Sunshiney One, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28909980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malachiical/pseuds/malachiical
Summary: Adrian Toomes can't seem to keep a lab partner, and she really doesn't mind that. She's not personable and she'd be happy to work alone. When she first meets stammering, shrinking Octavia Otto, she's hardly impressed... but it doesn't take her long to reassess from her first impression.
Relationships: Otto Octavius/Adrian Toomes
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2
Collections: Bulletproof 20/21





	so silver, so exact

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saiditallbefore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saiditallbefore/gifts).



> Title is from the song You Are The Moon by The Hush Sound.

Of the last three lab partners Adrian Toomes had had, two of them had requested to be transferred to different projects. The third she had confronted and then reported for embezzlement, despite the fact that he had strictly speaking been her superior.

After that, TriCorp seemed to have quietly decided that she could do her work well enough solo. It had been eight months since anyone had been assigned to work with her, and she hardly minded. She would be the first to admit she wasn't the friendliest of employees. She took her work seriously and didn't brook unnecessary interruptions; even during breaks she had no patience for small talk, and she wasn't interested in joining coworkers (or bosses) after hours for drinks or inane workplace events. If they decided to let her work alone until retirement that would be fine by her, though she wasn't expecting it; that would be years, maybe even a decade away. She wouldn't be so lucky.

So she wasn't surprised, though not exactly pleased either when Dr. Twaki introduced her to her new lab partner. She didn't glare, but her narrow-eyed displeasure must have been intimidating; the woman who stood before her was short and plump and seemed to shrink under her gaze, anxious eyes behind big, thick glasses looking to everything in the room that wasn't her.

"Dr. Octavia Otto," Twaki introduced her as, and Otto stammed her way through a quiet hello. Adrian barely resisted rolling her eyes. This was going to try her patience; even the scientists who had asked to transfer away from her hadn't been bothered by her to the point of tripping over their words, and she hadn't said a single thing to this one or dismissed a single overture yet. She almost didn't want to know what real brusqueness would do to the woman.

Otto finally met her eyes when she shook her hand, though, and while her grip was light it was surprisingly firm. Maybe there was more to her than it appeared.

"How long have you been working for TriCorp, Adrian?" Otto asked tentatively after Twaki left.

Adrian had turned back to her work and didn't look back over at her. "Twenty-seven years."

"Oh." Otto grew so quiet that Adrian could barely hear her. "That's good..."

Maybe not.

"Dr. Twaki did explain the project to you, I hope." Adrian didn't want to have to completely babysit this woman; she hoped that she was more impressive in the lab than she was interpersonally... Though it wasn't as if Adrian didn't lack interpersonal skills in the complete opposite direction, to be entirely fair.

"Oh, yes." There was a bit more confidence to Otto's voice. More than that, there was an odd sound, and Adrian did turn to glance at her then only to see her attaching a harness to herself. "It's why I asked to be transferred over."

 _You volunteered?_ What Adrian ended up asking, though, as two long robotic tentacles extended from the back of Otto's harness, was, "What are those?"

Otto glanced back, then looked at Adrian again and smiled, and it was like most of her self-consciousness and uncertainty just slipped away. "My arms," she explained. "Or, rather, they're mechanical arms of my own design, based heavily on the tentacles of cephalopods like squids, octopuses, even cuttlefish."

Octavia Otto had a very pretty voice, actually. Adrian was taken aback, both by this newfound confident explanation and by herself for noticing. "You seem passionate about biomimetics," she said slowly.

"Yes. Very." Otto faltered a bit again, but said, "You've been attempting to program in an autonomous swarming response in these robots, in the event that they find a human being in a disaster zone?"

"Or otherwise deserted area, yes." In theory, the robots would lead search and rescue teams directly to lost, trapped, or injured people, and Adrian saw no reason it wouldn't work.

"Have you been concentrating on the swarming instincts of ants or bees?"

"Ants." She admitted, impulsive, "But there's been enough trouble that I could be persuaded to change my focus."

"May I see?"

"You hardly need to ask me to see your own project."

When Adrian was offputting she often did not strictly mean to be, and she blinked as Otto's self-confidence visibly collapsed. Not entirely back to square one, but she wilted, sort of hunched, and her tentacle-arms twisted in the air in a way that almost seemed anxious.

"I- I'm sorry. Of course. Silly of me."

So she was obviously going to have to handhold Otto a _bit._ But she couldn't quite unsee that spark, when Otto had been engaged and in her element. There was a brilliant mind in that self-effacing shrinking violet, and... something else there. Of course, Adrian didn't often meet people who shared her passion for using animals as the inspiration for advancements in technology...

She did what she had done for no other lab partner, at least in the last two decades. She softened herself. Just slightly. "You needn't apologize, either. Here. Take a look."

  


* * *

  


Four years and several projects later and Dr. Octavia Otto was considered one of TriCorp's top biomimeticists, alongside Adrian herself. And for the first time in many years, Adrian vocally considered someone a friend. It was a surprise and a shame, then, when Octavia told her, quiet and almost ashamed though no longer stammering in her presence, that TriCorp had accepted her project proposal and that she was to be heading work on a battery pack with immense storage capacity, one that could last for years at a time even when powering quite energy-intensive machines.

"It is brilliant," Adrian allowed, dubious. "But TriCorp will legally own it. If you work on this project for the company, it will no longer be your own."

"I know," Octavia said. "I don't really need that. I know that it's important to you, Adrian... For your flight tech."

In truth, Adrian hadn't even wanted to admit to working on the preliminary sketches for her invention while working for TriCorp, much less on company time. She had, however, brought in her blueprints one day when she had felt she'd made a significant breakthrough in the design and shown Octavia, describing the project, admitting to how long she had been trying different designs and approaches to no avail.

Something about Octavia made her want to take unwise risks.

"So long as it isn't important to _you_ to own the patent." Though she still thought it was unwise, Octavia could make her own decisions here. Besides, her flight tech was her life's work - this was obviously not Octavia's. If anything could be called that, she had a feeling it was that harness with its metal arms that she manipulated almost as if they were extensions of her body. That had given Adrian some inspiration for her flight tech, in fact.

"I'll miss working with you," Octavia said, voice tentative, and Adrian found herself smiling at her; the smile that crossed Octavia's face when she did was small, tentative but bright. Adrian had found that she never regretted smiling at her, and doing so had come more and more naturally.

"You don't need to worry about that," Adrian assured, because as close as they had gotten Octavia still worried more than anyone she had ever known. "I may retire early, actually."

"Really?" Octavia blinked at her behind her glasses, mouth making a small 'o', and Adrian actually almost laughed, instead flashed a grin. It wasn't the first time she'd thought of kissing her, and each thought came less fleeting, but they were both so busy, she had never had the time - so she told herself - well, what of it now? Maybe once she had finished her flight tech she'd have the time after all.

"Yes. I've been considering it for several months," she admitted. _I would have stayed for you._ Now there was no real reason. "I'm more confident than ever in the viability of my flight tech. I can work on the project in earnest over the next year or two and find a buyer."

"It's... risky to do things that way, as well," Octavia said cautiously. "But I know how much this means to you, Adrian. And, I hoped, before I go- and before you go, now..."

She had brought in a camera. A nice one. Adrian flagged down one of the other scientists, because Octavia still stammered and hesitated and seemed to feel wretched to ask unnecessary things of most people, and he seemed surprised by her upbeat, almost pleasant demeanor and agreed to take a photo of them. Octavia had to practically tiptoe up to have her arm around Adrian's shoulders, and at the last few moments before the camera flashed, Adrian allowed her fingers to slip into Octavia's hair.

Over the next few years, right up until she was arrested, she looked at that picture a lot. It was certainly close enough to; she kept it framed near her work station at home.

  


* * *

  


The inmates who were well-behaved had a surprising amount of freedom at Ryker's, and Adrian had been a model prisoner, as much as she had seethed on the inside. She saw the news reports and the story in the _Bugle_ firsthand, then, rather than needing to wait on verbal accounts and rumors from anyone else. Doctor Octopus's attack on Norman Osborn, and then the next evening on TriCorp, and her rampage at Coney Island, during which several people had been threatened but no one had been harmed.

Adrian wasn't surprised when Octavia was sent to Ryker's as well. Only when she wound up stepping into Adrian's cell, escorted there by a guard and ordered to 'get along'. Octavia seemed as surprised to see her for a moment, and then a smile spread across her face that was new, and confident, and sly, yet somehow just as bright as any she had given before, obviously pleased.

"Adrian." Her voice was a low purr. "How fortunate I am. I can count on you, can't I?"

She was already making plans, that much was obvious, but Adrian had known for years that she was a genius. "You will have the help of the Vulture, Doctor Octopus," she agreed, standing from her cot. Her voice gentled. "You only need to ask."

Octavia's smile then was affectionate. "Oh, if anyone has earned the right to use the name of the woman I used to be," she murmured, "it's you, Adrian."

When she sealed that deal with a kiss after lights out, there was just enough light left for her to make out the way Octavia beamed, the contentment on her face. And if Adrian had loved her before she loved her even more fiercely then. She would, she was suddenly sure, give this woman the world if she wanted it.

It was good, then, that she did.

**Author's Note:**

> I ship these two really hard and like thinking about what their relationship might have been like pre-canon since they seem to have been close. I loved having an excuse to write a genderswap, too! Otto Octavius's genderswap name is taken from the comics.
> 
> Thank you for requesting such great tags, and I hope you had a wonderful time during Bulletproof!


End file.
